CURRICULUM OVERVIEW

Our curriculum provides each student with a comprehensive language arts program. The primary students participate in guided reading, shared reading, read-alouds and independent reading with their classroom teacher and literacy coordinator. Guided reading allows for students to work individually and in small groups on phonics and comprehension skills. Shared reading is completed through poetry. The students participate in read-alouds while studying various authors, such as Ezra Jack Keats, Chris Van Allsburg, Jan Brett and Marc Brown. Our students use journal writing and writing workshop to find their own style and strengths as writers. Through the writing process the students experience pre-writing, writing, revising, editing and publishing in order to create finished pieces of work to share with their teachers and classmates.

The students participate in small group activities and independent work with the Semple Math Program and Calendar Math to improve their number sense. By using daily calendar concepts the students learn patterns, shapes, place value, measurement, and money concepts. They also work on computation and problem solving skills. These daily experiences build on their background knowledge and number sense to prepare them for future math concepts.

By creating standards-based integrated units, students are able to participate in hands-on learning experiences, cooperative group activities, arts and crafts projects, and community activities to study new concepts in science and social studies. Some of the units studied in the primary classroom are Friendship, Community Helpers, The First Thanksgiving, Holidays Around the World, The Polar Regions, Dinosaurs and Insects.